


By the Lake

by tildarcta



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post Episode: s07e12 Victory and Death, Post-Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24037234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tildarcta/pseuds/tildarcta
Summary: It's easy to think in the quiet.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	By the Lake

**Author's Note:**

> Never have I ever had to write as a coping mechanism after watching or reading something. Apparently there’s always a first.

It’s quiet. 

The world around them breathes like the living thing it is, tall, coniferous trees swaying high up above them and hiding and revealing stars on the dark sky. There’s a lake nearby, and Rex hears the waves lapping at the stones.

It’s been three days since the moon. 

They don’t talk much. Usually it is just one of them informing the other about something new on the navigator but other than that, they just listen. To the engines, to the places they stop at, to the sound of their breathing. They landed on this planet some hours earlier and have not seen anyone else. The peace feels unreal. 

He shifts on his side and thinks about the lake. He cannot see it now, but the memory of the clear water lingers, mirrors the endless depths of the universe above in a way the oceans of Kamino rarely did. The water was always too deep, it stretched too far away, and sunlight was almost always inside the thick veil of clouds and so it made no difference. It was only on the rare nights when the clouds would part and give way to the striking blue sky in the horizon that the water seemed lighter, purer. 

Not that they ever really thought about it. Their lives were inside the training facilities, their minds always on their objectives, their orders, the war. The Clone War. Their war.

Now there is no war, no orders. No other objectives than the ones he sets for himself.

Ahsoka sits next to a tree further away. Rex is not sure whether she can sense he is still awake, but he knows she is, and so he rolls carefully onto his other side and sits up. She does not move, but after a while she speaks.

“I can’t feel anyone anymore.” 

Rex looks down at the ground and at the delicate white flowers that shine in the twilight. Something had changed in Ahsoka after she left the order. He had seen it when she had not told the council about General Skywalker and when they had talked back on the star destroyer, but most of all on the moon. He listens.

“The darkness has made everything difficult to sense, but I can’t feel even Obi-Wan, or Master Yoda…” She does not continue, but Rex knows the names she does not say out loud.

“What if I’m the only one?”

He lifts his gaze and finds Ahsoka staring into the distance, her form made almost invisible by the grey cloak on her shoulders. She has changed, but there are things that stay. Things that only years and years can shape into something else. 

“Come here”, he says, gently. “It’s lonely in there.”

She rises and walks silently to the spot where Rex sits, then settles down next to him.

“Aren’t they beautiful”, Rex asks softly and curls his fingers lightly under one of the flowers, trying not to break it. Seven pointed petals in the purest of white are surrounded by curly little threads. It is small enough to step over without ever knowing it was there.

“We never really had the time to notice things like this before.” 

Ahsoka looks at him and then turns her eyes to the flower.

“It’s quiet”, she says. 

Images of a crashed ship weave their way into his mind and for a moment the soft moss under his palm is cold rock and sand.

“I know”, he whispers.

They sit quietly for a moment.

“You’re not alone”, he says then. 

“I know”, she whispers.

She moves her hand to cover his on the ground, buried in the moss. Slender fingers that hold so much strength in them, fingers that helped him bury his dead brothers.

Ahsoka is the strongest person he knows. She is the most brilliant, most courageous and relentless, and _good_.

And because of that, he holds the promise in his eyes as he looks at her.

“Ahsoka, I know we are not the only ones. There are others left and we’re gonna find them. I don’t know what has happened, but we’re going to figure it out, and we’re gonna find them.” He breathes and thinks.

“What is it that the Jedi say? There’s no such thing as luck.”

Ahsoka shakes her head. “The Jedi are no more, Rex. And even if they were right, to call this luck, or… it’s not right.”

“How do you know”, he asks quietly. “We were always meant to be expendable, me and my brothers. It’s something we had to learn to live with. But even if just one of us survives to live a life outside the war and do something good with it, that’s good. We might save someone’s life. We can make a difference. Maybe it’s meant for us to go and find the others that survived.” He tilts his head. “The Order might be gone, but the Force is still here, right?”

“It is.”

Rex is hesitant as he lifts his arm, but Ahsoka does not resist as he places it around her shoulders. She is strong, but her body is small and it fits into his side in a way his brothers would not.

His friendship and support are the only things he has left to give, and Force be damned he will give them to her. Not because he has to, but because he can.

Ahsoka lets her head rest on his shoulder.

When they leave the next morning, Rex takes a moment to wade knee deep into the lake. The water is cool, almost cold and it stings his legs, but it does not feel bad. A rising sun illuminates the copper-colored rocks on the bottom. 

Ahsoka is already waiting for him when he returns to their ship with a bottle full of water.

“Next time we’re going swimming”, he says.

Her laughter makes the world a little less quiet.


End file.
